Jenny Kee MY LIFE WAS NEVER THE SAME

As she works to leave behind a legacy, the iconic fashion designer looks back on her incredible life

There was a T sudden lurch and a huge crash, followed by the scream of tortured metal. Shards of glass and wooden splinters flew through the air as Jenny Kee's baby daughter tumbled from her tight embrace, almost in slow motion.

The Australian fashion legend is still haunted by her memories of the Granville disaster, which killed 84 early morning commuters - including an unborn child - when their crowded train derailed, demolishing an overhead road bridge.

"You cannot even imagine what that was like, the train splitting in half, being sawn in half," says Jenny, who was one of the passengers on that fateful day of January 18, 1977. "It's all like a dream now... to me the horror is what happened to other people.

STATE OF SHOCK

"I can seriously remember Grace, my daughter, falling out of my arms. I was holding her so tight and that little face so close to my heart. And then she fell and there was so much blood... She must have been nicked by some of the debris, but I didn't know what it was. I was a mother with a 22-month-old baby who had so much blood on her head. I was in shock, the most shocking shock. All I could do was get her out of that train as fast as I could." Clambering over and through the wreckage, dodging live power lines, somehow Jenny reached safety up the rail embankment and was rushed to hospital with her toddler.